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The United Nations may resort to military action against states that defy its mandates on global climate action, according to Ole Wæver, a prominent international relations professor at the University of Copenhagen. In an interview with ABC News in Australia, Professor Wæver cautions that what he sees as “climate inaction” might draw the U.N. into considering other means to ensure its goals are met, even if that leads to global armed conflict. Professor Wæver says more resistance to change could potentially threaten democracy although the U.N. would counter that the end justified the means in much the same way countries...

Even the biting chill of Berlin’s already wintry fall weather wasn’t enough to hold protesters back on Friday as they took to the streets in their thousands to demand more action against climate change. One group of students even plunged into the icy waters of the Spree River, holding up a white box in a symbolic attempt to rescue the government’s climate-change package. The latest global climate strike comes just three days ahead of the COP25 Climate Change Conference in Madrid. People were set to march in 2,400 cities across 157 countries. […] Across town on Friday, the Bundesrat —...

European lawmakers have voted to declare an EU-wide climate emergency, in a symbolic move aimed at increasing pressure on the incoming European Commission to take a stronger stance on climate change. The climate declaration was passed on Thursday in Strasbourg during a European Parliament (EP) debate on the upcoming United Nations’ COP25 climate summit that kicks off December 2 in Madrid. In a statement on Twitter after the vote, EU lawmakers urged the European Commission “to fully ensure all relevant legislative and budgetary proposals are fully aligned” with the 1.5-degree-Celsius target limit on global warming. The resolution calls on the...

Denmark announced Monday a plan to speed up its battle against greenhouse gases, targeting nitrogen emissions due to farming, in a decision criticised by the agricultural industry. New rules targeting nitrogen aim “to guarantee a reduction of 3,500 tonnes in 2020,” a year earlier than promised by the previous government, the environment and food ministry said in a statement. The measure is part of wider government plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent by 2030. Denmark estimates that between 48,000 and 54,000 tonnes of nitrogen are emitted as a result of agriculture each year. The national farmers’ federation...

The average temperature in Germany rose 1.5 degrees Celsius between the years 1881 and 2018, with a 0.3 degree rise just in the last five years, a new climate change report revealed on Tuesday. “The observations of the German Weather Service are unambiguous. It is rapidly getting warmer, more heat waves are threatening our health and everyone must expect damage from heavier rainfall. Germany is in the grip of climate change,” said Tobias Fuchs, head of the Climate and Environmental Consulting Department of the German Weather Service (DWD). Fuchs was speaking at the presentation of the “Monitoring Report on Climate...

This post contains spoilers for Ford v Ferrari, a bad movie that you should not see. In the opening moments of Ford v Ferrari, racecar driver Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) is somewhere around the halfway mark of the 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans, the grueling French endurance race in which drivers speed around an 8.5-mile circuit as many times as possible for 24 hours straight. ItÂ’s the middle of the night, and fatigue is obviously starting to catch up with Shelby. He slows down for a pit stop and warns his crew that the engine is running hot. Right...

Silver bullet to hit us allMikhail Voytenko November 13, 2019 4:09 am A silver bullet hits shipping, killing everything on its’ path, in form of new research commissioned by campaign groups Seas At Risk and Transport and Environment. “Speed reduction is the closest thing to a silver bullet the IMO will ever see,” said Seas at Risk’s senior policy advisor John Maggs. “We’ve got a win from a climate point of view, we’ve got a win from a human health point of view, we’ve got a win for marine nature, we’ve got a potential safety gain, and up to a...

California announced new rules Friday for its state vehicle fleet to reduce pollution and reward automakers that are siding with it against the Trump administration. Officials immediately barred state agencies from buying any sedans that only run on internal combustion engines, with exemptions for certain public safety vehicles. The state has about 40,000 vehicles, about 8,400 of which are sedans. Starting next year, it will require state agencies to buy only from companies that recognize California’s authority to set greenhouse gas and zero emission vehicle standards. Only BMW, Ford, Volkswagen and Honda have decided to back California and endorse stricter...

The European Investment Bank said Thursday that it will stop financing fossil fuel energy projects from the end of 2021 as part of an effort to fight climate change. The decision, which ends fossil fuel funding a year later than initially proposed, follows lengthy negotiations among European Union member states, the bank’s shareholders. “We will stop financing fossil fuels and we will launch the most ambitious climate investment strategy of any public financial institution anywhere,” the EIB’s president, Werner Hoyer, said in a statement. Calling climate “the top issue on the political agenda of our time,” Hoyer noted scientists’ warnings...

Even as she acknowledged its not a religion, Sen. Mazi Hirono (D-Hawaii.) encouraged Americans Tuesday to embrace climate change “as though it’s religion.” Hirono was speaking to a group of DACA activists at a Center for American Progress organized prayer breakfast. The gathering preceded the group marching to the Supreme Court, where the high court is hearing arguments on President Trump’

An arctic air mass that brought snow and ice to an area stretching from the Rocky Mountains to northern New England on Monday was poised to give way to record-breaking cold temperatures. In Chicago, where as much as 6 inches (15 centimeters) of snow fell, an Envoy Air flight from Greensboro, North Carolina, slid off an icy runway at O’Hare International Airport as it tried to land at about 7:45 a.m. None of the 38 passengers and three crew members were injured, according to the city’s aviation department. And in Kansas, the highway patrol reported that a truck driving on...

The European Union needs to take a more active role in global politics if it wants to protect its interests, incoming European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday. “Europe must also learn the language of power,” von der Leyen said during a speech on European policy in Berlin. “On the one hand, this means building our own muscles [in areas] where we’ve long been relying on others — for example in security policies,” the former German defense minister said. “That also means applying our existing power in a more targeted way in areas where European interests are...

Scientists’ petition on climate crisis blocked over fake signatories Dozens of signatories including Mickey Mouse and Harry Potter headmaster Albus Dumbledore from Hogwarts have been ­removed from an Alliance of World Scientists declaration of a “climate emergency”.

Mitt Romney joins bipartisan Senate climate change solutions group FILE - Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, speaks at the Sutherland Institute in Salt Lake City on Monday, Aug. 19, 2019. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, speaks at the Sutherland Institute in Salt Lake City on Monday, Aug. 19, 2019. SALT LAKE CITY — Sen. Mitt Romney has joined a bipartisan Senate group that aims to find answers to climate change. The Senate Climate Solutions Caucus, led by Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., and Mike Braun, R-Ind., consists of an equal number or Republicans and Democrats. Romney said it would serve as a starting...

Google employees are demanding the company issue a climate plan that commits it to zero emissions by 2030.

For more than two years President Donald Trump has talked about pulling the United States out of the landmark Paris climate agreement . Starting Monday he finally can do something about it. Even then, though, the withdrawal process takes a year and wouldn’t become official until at least the day after the 2020 presidential election. […] The terms of the deal say no country can withdraw in the first three years. So Monday is the first time the U.S. could actually start the withdrawal process, which begins with a letter to the United Nations. And it doesn’t become official for...

On Friday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) said that hurricanes, superstorms, and tornadoes did not occur before climate change. In the same breath, he said that anyone who questions the left's climate-alarmist hysteria is "just delusional." He may want to check in a mirror. After he finished berating President Donald Trump in an interview with MSNBC, Cuomo turned to his latest attempt to enforce climate change orthodoxy. "You know, anyone who questions extreme weather and climate change is just delusional at this point," Cuomo said. "We have seen in the State of New York what everyone is seeing. We see these...

Snow has forced the cancellation of more than 200 flights at Chicago's international airports on Halloween. ... National Weather Service meteorologist Todd Kluber told the Chicago Sun-Times that O'Hare was expected to receive up to 3 inches of snow by Thursday night. Midway could get between 1 and 2 inches. Kluber said a heavy band of snow in Illinois' Kane County was expected to move east Thursday, reaching Chicago by noon. The heaviest snowfall is expected between noon and 4 p.m.

The Independent, 2000: Snow is starting to disappear from our lives. Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and the excitement of waking to find that the stuff has settled outside are all a rapidly diminishing part of Britain's culture, as warmer winters – which scientists are attributing to global climate change – produce not only fewer white Christmases, but fewer white Januaries and Februaries … Global warming, the heating of the atmosphere by increased amounts of industrial gases, is now accepted as a reality by the international community … According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit...

The process could work on the gas at any concentrations, from power plant emissions to open air. A new way of removing carbon dioxide from a stream of air could provide a significant tool in the battle against climate change. The new system can work on the gas at virtually any concentration level, even down to the roughly 400 parts per million currently found in the atmosphere. Most methods of removing carbon dioxide from a stream of gas require higher concentrations, such as those found in the flue emissions from fossil fuel-based power plants. A few variations have been developed...